Days gone by

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Examiner

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Posted Jul. 12, 2014 at 3:27 PM

Posted Jul. 12, 2014 at 3:27 PM

50 YEARS AGO

The following items were taken from July 5 through 11, 1964, Examiner.

• The present “Parking Enforcement Officers,” as the police call the girls, are Mrs. Lavern Ehlebrecht, 24, and Mrs. Jody West, 22. Orson F. Meyers, Chief of Police, said the idea used in other cities is made to order for Independence.

• Vandals with little respect for the American flag were on the loose. More than 75 of the 320 small flags which the Jackson Square Merchants Association had placed on parking meters were taken during the night.

• A two-story home at 217 N. Pleasant St. is now the home of the Independence Boys Club. Manager Bill Scott hopes to open the club on a full-time schedule soon for the 130 boys now in the club’s membership.

• An exhibit set up at the request of President John Kennedy is on loan at the Truman Library. The exhibit normally housed at the Roosevelt Library is of “FDR’s Old Navy Prints,” including some on the Revolutionary War period.

• Miss Maybelle Franz, 22-year-old “Miss Independence” will leave for Springfield, where she will compete with 31 other candidates in the “Miss Missouri” pageant.

• Mrs. Tom Lee of Buckner was re-elected president of the Jackson County Library for the 10th time at the board’s regular meeting. James Leathers is secretary-treasurer.

100 YEARS AGO

The following items were taken from the July 5 through 11, 1914, Examiner.

• The mouse, generally regarded as an unmitigated nuisance, was doing all he can to aid human kind in “swatting the fly.” In a shop not far from the Examiner, a mouse was seen cutting queer antics in the show window. He would lope from side to side of the window and frequently rise up on his hind legs like a Jack in the Box, and at the same time he would reach up with his front feet into the air like a player catching a ball, then would bring his front feet to his mouth. On closer inspection, he was not only catching the flies, but eating them too.

• A regular home laundry with up-to-date equipment is what Fred Harris has at his farm home. A 2 horse power gasoline engine pumps the water and turns the washing machine. More than that, it turns the churn and performs various other tasks on the farm. “It’s a time saver, labor saver and money saver.” says Harris. He also has a 10 horse power engine, which he uses in grinding feed.

• The conductor of a passenger train coming from Kansas City toward Independence telegraphed for a police officer to meet the train at the Independence depot. A drunk man was on the train and raising a disturbance. There is a state law, a new one, which forbids common carriers, such as steam or suburban railways, from carrying persons who are intoxicated.

Page 2 of 2 - • Four Maywood boys, in ages from 11 to 14, are on their way to the State Reform School at Boonville. A number of citizens of the community went before the Juvenile court and testified that the boys had terrorized the neighborhood and were not to be controlled anywhere.